THG takes a look at Hammer

By
02.28.2002 :: 12:33PM EST

Tom's Hardware Guide has posted another look at Hammer and its unexpected yet exciting debut near Intel's IDF 2002. There are some really great close-up pictures of both Clawhammer and Sledgehammer, and a look at the Hammer roadmap. Read more here.

USER COMMENTS 16 comment(s)

Blech(1:15pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)AMD will release the CPU and one mediocre chipset, and then again leave it up to VIA to support it with bug-ridden crappy chipsets. Or maybe not… Who knows… – by pessimist

I mean no one…(1:39pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)…make a good chipset for AMD? I don't know, I considering building my first AMD and would certainly like to know. – by Nunbie AMD'er

These are critical. The rest you can pretty much go cheap on. The MoBo almost doesn't matter, but to be safe, just buy ASUS.

They win the majority of benchmarks and get high marks for reliability, support and being at the sweet spot with regard to onboard features for the money.

– by GoatGuy

ASUS, i refuse to pay more! AMD-8000 chipset – STABILITY(2:14pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)I will not pay more money for asus, i have owned about 4 asus boards, and i can say that the epox board i currently have has more options and is more stable than any asus board i have had. Now i have never had to RMA my asus board but my friend have many times (luck i guess).

I think the AMD-8000 chipset will be aim more at stability than speed, even tho i think it will kick a$$, especially P4's a$$. If they can make that 30% increase at the same speed possible then *ntel better have something under their sleaves.

I think VIA has come a long way, their KT266A is very nice and i havent had any issues with it, and i run scsi RAID (mylex 250 controller) and almost all pci slots full. The KT333 reviews says that its even better. Waiting for the KT400 AXP on .13 micron.

How much does the chipset on the mobo influence the clawhammer, if it has the nortbridge on it, or memory controller – i havent read much on it, can someone explain how it will work. – by SpyTech NYC

Good gracious(3:12pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)as a Mac user (and former 8088 user :P) looking to piece together a gaming rig in the near future, it just gets cloudier by the minute as to which components to buy.

That NForce looks promising, but I keep getting steered away from it to ASUS by you people. Now I'm hearing Epox is the way to go. :P

Anybody care to stay/get on topic?(3:50pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)Anyone else notice the HSF is held on with Screws!? Nice idea! No more HSF's rattling around in the cases ever! – by Me

Gropo(7:24pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)i'm on my way home to put together my new nForce mobo and duron. As i'm sure everyone is aware, I'm a mac user as well, and this is my first upgrade to the obligatory PC (p2) that I built a few years back. I really dig the nForce concept, its almost built like an apple mobo, what with the video and sound and ethernet all rolled into one and controlled by the northbridge and media processor (southbridge) directly (am i right on that? that's the impression i got anyway).

I'll let you know how it works…I would have finished it last night, but my old PS is too weak to juice this beast, so i'm off to the nerd store! – by 505

Good Gracious(8:26pm EST Thu Feb 28 2002)did any of u guys get to see the roadmap on the SledgeHammer MP???? they're talking about 4-8 way processing… GOD!!! as a CGI artist i running cpu intensive apps — i would love to get a hold of this board!! i cant wait!!!!! i currently have a dual athlon and it runs great!

now if only apple would put out a quad board… – by :P

Chipset stability(7:57am EST Fri Mar 01 2002)How about the stability of the AMD 760 chipset? AMD can make a chipset that is fast and stable for themselves. They just use VIA et al for production so AMD can develop new CPUs. – by dbzeag

????(10:12am EST Fri Mar 01 2002)Since the Hammer chips have some motherboard chipsets built into them, shouldn't the pin count for the Hammers be lower than the XP's? – by JoeBlow

JoeBlow(10:51am EST Fri Mar 01 2002)Almost half of the pins on any CPU are either grounding pins, or voltage pins. Depending on the refinement of the design, a smaller CPU core probably requires less grounding or voltage pins, and therefore, new processors don't necessarily required MORE pins. – by – –

nForce(10:59am EST Fri Mar 01 2002)I am also keen on this as a motherboard chipset, largely because I have been very impressed with nVidia as a whole. There graphics cards are always rock solid, and their Driver support is really truely unmactched from ANY hardware manufacturer. They have the most stable BETA drivers that I have ever seen.

The nForce may initially have weaker performance compared to its competitors, but I do belive that with nVidia driver support, it wouldn't take much to make nForce boards really performance winners just by a few BIOS tweaks, or board level drivers. Look at Via and how their chipsets have benefitted from their 4in1 driver upgrades. The problem is that Via is hit and miss with their drivers, and a new driver doesn't necessarily transfer into better performance (a few have actually decreased performance).

I however don't like the total integration on the motherboard, unless it doesn't add a significant premium to the cost, and it can be completely turned off in place of add-in boards. New sound/video and even new ethernet (gigabit, wireless) cards are always going to become available, so any system should be left open enough to add on upgrades without having to wrestle with built in components.

With AMD's weak chipset support, I think they do need to start concentrating on the chipset rather then the chip, and either provide developers with the tools and design specifications to develop strong support for AMD chips, or AMD needs to start doing it themselves. What good is getting the fastest CPU around when the chipset causes the computer to crash 9 out of 10 times? – by Ed

Re: Ed(12:38pm EST Fri Mar 01 2002)“What good is getting the fastest CPU around when the chipset causes the computer to crash 9 out of 10 times?”

Precisely. I'm not too concerned about the raw performance of the NForce, rather the stability and cost/benefit ratio. I think I'll wait for the next revision when the on-board GPU is of the GeForce3 class. Flexibility and choice of upgrade paths is not my priority – getting a cheap, *stable* board for playing Unreal Tournament 2 is… It will be ironic to purchase a motherboard that resembles a 60x class Apple moreso than an x86 PC (integrated video/audio) hehe – by Gropo

Intel rules!(2:53pm EST Fri Mar 01 2002)“What good is getting the fastest CPU around when the chipset causes the computer to crash 9 out of 10 times?”

Thats why AMD Sucks! – by Jack

WTF are you dudes smoking.(5:24pm EST Fri Mar 01 2002)Lets say that as AMD got bigger, their chipsets got better, right? If what your saying is true, then my K6-2 with it's ancinet motherboard would never start. I have never had a hardware related crash. Prove to me that AMD chipsets, and not software, cause crashes. And god, i can't install a cpu, how do they expect me to get a sledgehammer in? – by Warplex